Ugasanie - White Silence

Though it may be a subject that has been covered many times before within the genre, Ugansie comes off the dark ambient label Cryo Chamber with an album focusing entirely around the sole theme of cold air, dying seasons, and inhabitable arenas with White Silence. This nine track beauty attempts to completely overtake your mind with the frost that it attempts to recreate through the sounds that will pour through your very own speakers.

The Island of Terrible Death is the song that sets you off on this journey, rallying in the feel of someone discovering just a devastated and frost ridden realm that is not fit for human survival. As the waves roll onto one another, and the air brushes through the earphones, there is no reason not to feel as if you're anywhere but in the middle of an arctic location.

However, as well as the first song was able to convey that feeling, Under the Cover of the Polar Night sort of failed to deliver on that promise with a drone like note setting through for much of the song. Though decent, it did not have much going for it. The second half of the song makes you feel as if you're underground, listening to music from above. It wasn't all too pleasant in any sense.

Getting a bit weird, To the Lord of the Polar Desert With Seven Faces offered chants alongside the dark music that began around the three minute mark. Not that stellar, and a bit annoying to deal with, I think this song would have bettered itself should it had more of a tribal vibe to it.

Permafrost was another drone song with one main line going right through it with sparse effects. Though it did succeed in inspiring a cold area and a wonderful spacious atmosphere, the notes failed to change often, and therefore left me bored at times.

Transparency fixed that issue with a nice sole breeze flushing through over adorable synth effects. There were also some very nice sounds of natures involved, such as birds chirping and what not, giving way for a more forgiving landscape, though still distraught with a winter substance.

In the Northern Lights was honestly nothing new to me; it sounded nice, but the notes drug on and on creating another boring and tedious song. There were few effects too far apart in the song to keep it fresh, and I felt the same way when it came to White Silence, Tundra Fogs, and even Silence of the Rocks, though some of those songs had decent intros and outros.

So, really, Ugasanie is good at making these sounds come to life, and the use of field recordings is well served on this album. However, what needs to change are the effects that accompany the drone songs; yes, the genre is hard to work with, as there really is just one note to work with, but something needs to grab my attention for me to be able to truly enjoy myself. There were the bright sides of this album, but there were also too many bad sides for me to fully recommend this to fans of the dark ambient/drone genres. Jun 18 2014